The LDP's reformists continue to battle family politics

Surprisingly, given the howls of protest from within the LDP that greeted Suga Yoshihide's proposal to include a ban on hereditary candidates in the party's election manifesto, the LDP appears ready to include restrictions on political inheritances in the manifesto after Suga met with Koga Makoto, the LDP's chief elections strategist, and Ibuki Bunmei, former LDP secretary-general and cabinet minister. Asahi reports that the proposed restriction will take the form of a regulation that will require a retiring politician to transfer his political organization's funds to the party upon retirement.

Given the prime minister's opposition to the idea, I wonder whether the agreement between Suga and Koga will be enough to secure inclusion in the manifesto.

Nevertheless, the party's reformists have latched on to the idea, suggesting that whatever happens with the LDP's manifesto, it will not go away. Restricting political inheritance is only the latest means for the reformists to run against their own party. Yamamoto Ichita, in an explication spanning four posts, frequently notes that forty percent of LDP Diet members are hereditary members — and says (unironically, given the phrase's original context) that the party needs to be able to draw upon the "best and the brightest." Giving preference to hereditary members, he argues, has turned potentially talented individuals away from the LDP. (There may be something to this: I wonder how many of the DPJ's younger members had hoped to earn the LDP's endorsement and turned to the DPJ only upon finding the LDP's doors closed to them.) Yamamoto also is unconvincing on the constitutionality of these restrictions, treating it in the context of restrictions on the freedom to choice one's occupation (Article 22), rather than, say, political discrimination on the basis of family origin (Article 14).

Through it all, Yamamoto and the other advocates fail to demonstrate why this is such an urgent problem at this point — and why it should be a prominent subject for discussion in the general election campaign. Ultimately discussions like this amount to political bait-and-switch, efforts by LDP reformists to sell the idea that the LDP has the potential to be the party of change, if only the reformists are given the run of things. 2005 may seem like a long time ago, but I hope voters remember what happened then: voters rewarded Koizumi Junichiro and his "children" with a huge majority, stripped of the hard core of Koizumi's "opposition forces," only to have the LDP readmit nearly all of the postal rebels mere months after Koizumi left office. The past four years have been one long retreat from the promise of Koizumi's new party. Why should the voters trust the LDP to be any different this time around, despite the promises of Nakagawa Hidenao and company?

Conservative-in-chief

Fresh from his trip to Washington, D.C., Abe Shinzo has thrust himself into the debate over how Japan should respond to North Korea's rocket launch this month.

On Tuesday he delivered an address to the new study group led by Yamamoto Ichita (discussed in this post) that calls for an "investigation" into the development of conventional deterrent capabilities that would enable Japan to strike at bases in North Korea. Abe endorsed the group's aims and stressed the importance of permitting collective self-defense for the sake of strengthening the alliance. Of particular interest is that Abe argued that acquiring the technological capabilities to strike North Korea and the legal framework that would enable Japan to use its new capabilities would strengthen the alliance. I suppose it is possible to argue that any improvement in Japan's capabilities would strengthen the US-Japan alliance, but I find that argument fallacious. It is easy enough to imagine how Japan's having the ability to strike North Korea directly would undermine the alliance by posing the risk that Japan might entrap the US in a shooting war not desired by Washington. After all, look at the differences between the official US and Japanese responses to this month's launch.

It seems unlikely that Japan would actually use conventional strike capabilities to attack North Korea, but then again, if Japan actually acquired said capabilities, it seems conceivable that the government might feel pressured to use them if presented with evidence of an imminent North Korean attack (which raises questions about the Japanese government's ability to discern an imminent strike, and whether it would shoot first and ask questions later).

There are other questions worth asking. Would an independent Japanese conventional deterrent make much of a difference in the alliance's ability to deter North Korea? What capabilities does the US lack when it comes to deterring North Korea from striking in any direction? More importantly, how will Japan be any less deterred from launching an attack on North Korea than the US, especially without nuclear weapons in its arsenal? (Over to you, Nakagawa Shoichi!) At the same time, by calling for independent strike capabilities, Abe and other conservatives may be raising doubts — intentionally or unintentionally — about the US security guarantee where fewer existed before, which could in turn...lead to more support for precisely the policy called for by the conservatives.

As far as I am concerned, the biggest difference between Ozawa Ichiro and his conservative critics on defense policy is that at least Ozawa is frank about his desire for a more independent Japan capable of saying no to the US.

This speech by Abe is another sign that far from having softened his image following his fall from power, Abe appears to have learned nothing and is no less obsessed with remaking Japan according to his vision, a vision that in security policy entails barely veiled disgust with postwar Japan as it exists and a view of international politics that belongs more in the nineteenth than the twenty-first century.

Perhaps Abe believes that he will get another shot at the premiership without adjusting at all after his disastrous first at-bat. But in practical terms Abe's recent activities may be more about Abe's reclaiming his position as the LDP's leading conservative ideologue than about his scheming for another run for the LDP presidency, which for the foreseeable future is unlikely to be an option open to him. If Aso Taro manages to lead the LDP to victory, his position will be cemented, forcing Abe to wait, perhaps indefinitely for another chance; if Aso and the LDP lose, it is unlikely that the LDP would turn to a man who would bear much (indirect) responsibility for that defeat to lead the party in opposition.

Abe may be better off as conservative-in-chief. Even as prime minister Abe preferred pontificating about the future and musing about how Japan ought to be than coping with Japan as it is, warts and all. As chief ideologue, Abe can give speeches to LDP study groups and Washington think tanks to his heart's delight, leaving the hard choices and compromises of governing to someone else. He will face little competition for the job. Aso, for all his shortcomings, is far superior to Abe as a politician; whatever his ideological predilictions, he has not forgotten that his job as prime minister is to govern on behalf of all Japanese and his job as LDP president is to help his party win the next election. Aso certainly has his predilictions — his fervent belief in Japan's latent power — but unlike Abe he has tried to square his beliefs with public insecurities, instead of ignoring the insecurities to focus on the ideology. And besides, Aso is a bit too much of a maverick even among conservatives to fit comfortably as the conservative-in-chief.

Abe, without question a true believer, is a better fit for the job. Lucky for him he has plenty of time on his hands.

The foolish crusade against the House of Councillors

In May 2008, I wrote about the creation of an LDP study group with the goal of eliminating the House of Councillors — the Diet's upper house — and moving to a unicameral system, a proposal that I suggested was an anti-democratic temper tantrum in response to DPJ control of the upper chamber.

This proposal and its advocates, however, are still at work trying to undermine Japanese democracy. The study group is working hard to introduce a plank demanding a unicameral system into the LDP's manifesto for the next general election. As Yamamoto Ichita, a member of the study group, explains, the proposal is not just to dissolve the upper house but to dissolve both houses and create a new unicameral legislature with significantly fewer legislators. The plan calls for the number of legislators to be cut by thirty percent and for single-member districts to give way to prefecture-wide multi-member districts. He claims it isn't simply a response to the DPJ's control of the upper house.

As I noted last year, given that such a radical change would require Japan's first ever constitutional amendment (Article 42: "The Diet shall consist of two Houses, namely the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors"), and given that the days of the government's supermajority are almost certainly numbered, this proposal is singularly farfetched. It is doubtful whether this proposal would receive majority support, let alone supermajority support. Prime Minister Aso is circumspect; Komeito is favorably disposed to cutting the number of legislators but opposed to removing the upper house; and the DPJ's Ozawa Ichiro thinks this should not be a subject for discussion at all before a general election.

So why am I writing about this proposal?

Only because it shows how batty some LDP members have gotten as their party has decayed. Not only do this proposal's proponents — including the past four prime ministers — ignore the steep obstacles standing in the way of ever making a unicameral system a reality given present political circumstances, but they are so short-sighted that they fail to realize that given the probability of the LDP's going into opposition, the upper house will be a useful tool for crafting an LDP revival.

The DPJ, the upper house's largest party but not the majority party, needs every vote it can get in order to control the upper chamber. For now, it is dependent on the Social Democrats and the People's New Party. Even if the DPJ wins an absolute majority in the lower house and forms a government, it will still have to cobble together working coalitions in the upper house. In this situation, the LDP will be powerful both as a potential partner and as a potential spoiler of DPJ plans. The same will apply to Komeito. Surely the members of the coalition parties, surrounded by signs of impending collapse, have begun thinking about what life in opposition will be like. Surely they know all too well that the upper house can be a useful platform for disrupting government business.

But the unicameralists not only exhibit a shortsightedness on the part of LDP members, they show how LDP members have looked to attribute policy failures to anyone or anything but their own party. Naturally there are exceptions, most notably Mr. Koizumi and his followers. But the desire to blame structural forces — the electoral system, the parliamentary system, the policymaking system — is persistent, and unconvincing.

How can the same structures that in many ways sustained LDP rule now suddenly be contributing to the LDP's demise? For example, if the much-vilified bureaucracy, Nakagawa Hidenao's bete noire, has misgoverned Japan, the obvious question is why the LDP has allowed the bureaucracy to make such a mess of things. Mr. Nakagawa would answer that the bureaucracy is an all-powerful complex — which Mr. Nakagawa explicitly describes as akin to Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" — that is capable of manipulating the LDP, the media, the universities, and so on.

Not good enough. At some point the LDP, accountable to the public for policy, must pay the price for failures. No more excuses. No more scapegoats.

Tax rebellion averted?

The LDP appears to have forged a truce in the incipient war over writing the timing of a consumption tax increase into law.

In the best LDP tradition, the LDP leadership has decided to muddle the message of the bill. The LDP has produced a draft with language that calls for implementing "essential legislative measures by 2011" for fundamental tax reform including the consumption tax, but also adds that the precise timing of said measures will depend on "the state of the process of economic recovery and an examination of trends in the global economy." The draft also calls for a two-stage increase of the consumption tax. Finally, it included language designed to appease the potential rebels by calling for appropriate measures to promote administrative reform and eliminate wasteful spending.

The LDP leadership hopes to secure a cabinet decision on the draft by Friday.

Amazingly, these minor edits appear to be sufficient to quell the discontent among the LDP's reformists. Said Nakagawa Hidenao in response to the additions: "The supplementary provisions cannot be said to be a tax increase bill; they are nothing more than instructional provisions." His fellow malcontent, Yamamoto Ichita, is less impressed with the compromise.

"Anywhere you look in the world," he writes, "there are no governments saying things like, 'Depending on the situation we will raise taxes after three years.'" He believes that far from being "merely instructional," the plan will appear to the public as a solid commitment to a tax increase, a tax increase that Mr. Yamamoto does not deny may one day be necessary but argues that for now is political and economic folly to discuss.

The compromise may be a way for the tax hikers to create a foothold; if the LDP somehow survives this year's general election and if the reformists are diminished by the returns, they now have a basis for going forward with a firmer commitment. Instructions now, substance later.

For the same reason, I wonder whether the Japanese press is declaring a truce in the tax rebellion prematurely. Mr. Yamamoto's response does not sound like someone who is content with the party's compromise — and I'm sure he's not alone. It may be that the rest of the reformists do not share Mr. Nakagawa's desire to accommodate the party.

Meanwhile, I think I am with Kono Taro on this debate. At his blog, Mr. Kono muses on the growing severity of the downturn and wonders why the LDP is wasting its time on whether to hike the consumption tax in 2011 — a time at which, he notes, the LDP may not even be the ruling party — when sales are falling, company debt is growing, credit is freezing, and manufacturing is shrieking to a halt. He assumes that another stimulus package will be unavoidable, and that the LDP should be doing all it can to stop the bleeding instead of debating whether to raise taxes once the economy recovers.

The LDP's tax revolt

The upper house has begun debating the Aso government's second stimulus package and its controversial proposal to distribute roughly two trillion yen to Japanese citizens, 12,000 yen (US$132) per person in the hope of restarting the Japanese economy.

At the same time, the LDP is in the midst what could be the climactic battle in a long civil war over whether to raise the consumption tax.

The two policies are linked, the product of a bargain between the government and the finance ministry whereby the finance ministry agreed to release the stimulus funds in exchange for a commitment from the government to raise the consumption tax at the earliest possible date. Accordingly, the battle raging around these policies involves the same protagonists: on one side, bureaucrat bashers Nakagawa Hidenao, Yamamoto Ichita, and other Koizumian reformists (with Watanabe Yoshimi now sniping from the sidelines), and on the other, Aso Taro, Nakagawa Shoichi, his finance minister, Yosano Kaoru, the economy minister and longtime advocate of consumption tax increase as indispensable for sound public finance, and the Japanese bureaucracy.

The debate is over whether the government should include a commitment to phase in a consumption tax increase from 5% to 10% starting 2011 in the government's mid-term tax program. In making the case for the increase, it appears that Mr. Aso and his ministers will emphasize the importance of the tax for providing economic security for all citizens. Asked about the planned increase in Diet proceedings Monday, Mr. Aso stressed the importance of restoring the country's finances for providing pensions, health care, and welfare for Japanese citizens and insisted that Japan must wait no longer than the time it takes for the economy to recover to set about fixing its fiscal situation. In a sop to the reformers, Mr. Aso has also promised that any tax increase will be accompanied by efforts to cut waste and reform the bureaucracy.

Mr. Aso will likely spell out his thinking on the consumption tax question in his policy speech, which will not be delivered before January 26. Yomiuri reports that his address will spell out his economic philosophy and emphasize the need to put social security on surer footing — and also suggests that Mr. Aso will join in the capitalism bashing, criticizing "market fundamentalism" and distancing the LDP ever further from Koizumi Junichiro's structural reform agenda.

Despite indications to the contrary, the government does not appear to be backing down from its commitment to either half of the stimulus package/consumption tax increase program, despite opposition from within the party, opposition parties, business leaders, and an overwhelming majority of the public. If anything, the government is doubling down on its commitment, despite taking a beating in the court of public opinion — and the prime minister is convinced he will get his way. Asked Monday evening whether he expects rebellion within the party over the bill to revise the tax system for the 2009 fiscal year, which will contain the promised consumption tax increase, Mr. Aso dismissed the idea. His finance minister rejected an appeal from a ministry shingikai to withdraw the stimulus package with an outright "no." Jun Okumura thinks there might be more to it, but it seems possible that the Aso government is so far gone down this path that to abandon this course of action could mean the end of the government, the final push that brings the government's approval rating into the single digits and results in a vote of no confidence.

In any case, in Monday's deliberations Mr. Aso reiterated his government's decision to push forward with the stimulus package

Of course, pushing ahead with the scheme could mean the end of the government as well. While Mr. Aso dismissed the chances of a rebellion should the government need a supermajority to reapprove its bills in the Diet during the current session, the possibility is all too real. The Koizumians, having become the LDP's anti-mainstream since Mr. Koizumi left office in 2006, may finally have been pushed too far. As the Tokyo Shimbun reminds us, it will take only sixteen rebels to defeat the bill should the lower house have to pass it again over upper house opposition. Will sixteen emerge? Even without considering the Koizumians, the Aso government could be in trouble. Even Tsushima Yuji, head of the LDP's tax commission and head of the Tsushima faction, has voiced his opposition to explicitly setting a date for the introduction of a consumption tax increase. One does not need to be a Koizumian to wonder whether it is politically sensible to commit to a consumption tax increase when it appears that Japan still has not reached bottom in the current economic crisis.

But should Mr. Aso get his way in party deliberations and succeeds at introducing a consumption tax commitment into Diet deliberations, the LDP's reformists may finally stand up and say no to the government after two years of being pushed to the side, with Nakagawa Hidenao and Yamamoto Ichita the two leading figures in the campaign against both sides of the government's bargain with the finance ministry. Mr. Nakagawa's fight is as much against the bureaucracy as it is with Mr. Aso. In this post at his blog, for example, Mr. Nakagawa argues that the bureaucrats are insensitive to the lives of the Japanese people, that their planning on the consumption tax question is based solely on economic statistics instead of on the reality of daily life. Mr. Yamamoto writes at greater length on the reasoning behind the opposition of the reformists. Mr. Yamamoto, like Mr. Nakagawa, claims to not be opposed to the consumption tax increase in principle but believes that other steps must be taken first before introducing the tax: steps to eliminate waste, cut the number of Diet members (an intriguing idea, seeing as how Japan has nearly two hundred more national legislators than the United States for a country with just over a third the population), and combat amakudari. He also rejects the arguments floated to defend the idea that a consumption tax increase is political suicide for the LDP — Mr. Yamamoto finds the notions that the public will praise Mr. Aso for tackling the consumption tax issue and for showing how the LDP will pay for its proposals (unlike the DPJ) laughable.

Messrs. Nakagawa and Yamamoto have now been joined by the maestro himself, Mr. Koizumi. The former prime minister met with Mr. Nakagawa and Takebe Tsutomu Monday evening and declared that the idea of setting a date for the introduction of a consumption tax increase is mistaken. Mr. Koizumi's guidance might not influence the government, but it may steel the resolve of the LDP's reformists. I wonder too whether Watanabe Yoshimi's now constant presence on television will give courage to his former compatriots, providing a reminder that they have a place to go should they decide to rebel against the government. Mr. Watanabe's decision to act as an advance guard may yet prove to be a wise decision.

In any case, as this debate unfolds it is worth noting that the tax debate captures everything that is wrong with the LDP today and illustrates why prime minister after prime minister has failed to govern.

The tax issue encompasses everything: Kasumigaseki-Nagatacho relations, the size and role of the state, the future of economic governance (neo-liberalism versus something else), control of the LDP and the government, and the LDP's prospects beyond the 2009 general election. It shows that the LDP is several parties traveling under one label, several parties that increasingly see the political system in fundamentally irreconciliable ways. Mr. Aso and his predecessors have failed because the LDP is beyond the command of any one politician. Japan is ungovernable because the LDP is ungovernable, meaning that the loser in all of this is, of course, the Japanese people, who are no closer to having a government capable of fixing the government's finances and providing the protection they desire.

Is such a government waiting in the wings? The DPJ has been sniping on the sidelines of the LDP debate, presenting an argument similar to the LDP's reformists — the DPJ will oppose any bill stating a date for a consumption tax increase because efforts to reform the bureaucracy should precede any increase in the tax burden for the Japanese people. The DPJ, however, should tread carefully. It is easier to bash the bureaucracy than to offer a plan to fix the budget that does not include a consumption tax increase in some form. And if and when the DPJ forms a government, it will need that selfsame bureaucracy in order to govern.

Finally, as an aside, it is worth asking whether the current Diet, nearing the end of its term, should be allowed to vote on such weighty matters as whether to provide a stimulus package of dubious effectiveness or to commit to a consumption tax increase. While in a purely technical sense the current Diet is, of course, legitimate, it is in some sense a lame duck Diet, given the likelihood that the government will call an election as soon as it has the 2009 budget in hand. Why should a collection of parliamentarians, many of whom will no longer hold their seats at year's end, be allowed to decide Japan's fate at this critical turning point? It is clear why Mr. Watanabe wants an election to be held immediately.

The field gets crowded

On Friday I noted that the LDP was shaping up with four candidates.

Not long after I wrote that post, however, it became clear that the field would expand before long, in large part because younger LDP members like Yamauchi Koichi are unhappy with their choices.

As a result, Ishiba Shigeru (51), the former defense minister, Yamamoto Ichita (50), the rockin' upper house member from Gunma, and possibly Tanahashi Yasufumi (45), an LDP young turk, have each declared their intention to contest the Sept. 22 election.

It is unclear which among them will be able to muster the twenty endorsements necessary to run.

The bigger the field, the greater the chance of a surprise, especially since all forty-seven prefectural chapters will be holding elections to determine how to cast their three votes. At the very least, it raises the likelihood of a runoff election should no candidate receive a majority in the first round of voting. (For a look at the implications of the LDP's shift to popular, "open" voting, read this post by Jun Okumura.)

But looking at the shape of the field, the absence of another conservative from the True Conservative Policy Research Group is telling. The conservatives behind Mr. Aso are remarkably disciplined compared to their ideological rivals. Considering the incredible amount of disunity in Japanese political organizations (a trait, I should note, that is by no means unique to Japanese organizations), the lack of public disharmony among the LDP's conservatives is nothing short of remarkable. It could well make the difference in the outcome of the presidential election.

Fixing Fukuda's "good enough" cabinet

After Koizumi Junichiro called upon Prime Minister Fukuda to decide whether to shuffle his cabinet in the coming months, Mori Yoshiro — Mr. Fukuda's so-called "guardian" and an advocate of a reshuffle — and Kato Koichi suggested that the prime minister should form a new cabinet before the start of the extraordinary Diet session in the autumn.

In a speech Friday, Mr. Mori suggested that the prime minister should announce the new cabinet in the second half of July or the first half of August, before the O-bon festival.

Mr. Kato, meanwhile, said that a reshuffle would enable the prime minister to promulgate a Fukuda agenda that would serve to distance the LDP from the Koizumi agenda. He suggested that new cabinet should exclude members of the CEFP under Prime Ministers Koizumi and Abe. [I would dispute the idea that Mr. Abe didn't mark a break from the Koizumi line; it appeared to me that Mr. Abe was keen to distance himself from his predecessor.]

For his part, Mr. Fukuda remains noncommital, insisting that he remains a "blank sheet" on the question of a cabinet shuffle.

Yamamoto Ichita, LDP upper house member from Gunma prefecture and supporter of a shuffle, argues that if Mr. Fukuda taps powerful, popular officials and times the new cabinet's appearance just right, Mr. Fukuda might reverse his decline and undercut the DPJ. He offers three reasons.

First, a new cabinet would distance Mr. Fukuda from the taint of the Abe cabinet. Mr. Yamamoto argues that Mr. Fukuda's cabinet is still the second Abe cabinet (with a few changes). A change, he suggests, would enable the prime minister to wield more control over the government and make some progress in tackling policy problems.

Second, Mr. Yamamoto cites Mr. Koizumi to argue that a shuffle is one of two tools (the other being the power to dissolve the Diet and call an election) that the prime minister has to impose his will on party and parliament.

Third, Mr. Yamamoto suggests that if Mr. Fukuda lets the new Diet session begin without forming a new cabinet (after which a shuffle is unlikely), it will signal to the LDP that Mr. Fukuda is doomed and presumably trigger more intense campaigning to succeed him.

(He also argues, in an unnumbered point, that a shuffle will enable the prime minister to bring young LDP leaders to the fore and boost the party's appeal.)

The aforementioned arguments sound logical enough, but they rest on the unfounded assumption that the Japanese public will be satisfied with a statement of good intentions, as opposed to concrete, resolute action to address their insecurities. Will a new cabinet be any more effective or dynamic than the current cabinet? Does Mr. Fukuda actually want to form a "Fukuda-colored" cabinet that will take a definitive policy position (pro-reform or anti-reform / pro-consumption tax hike or pro-growth / pro-Koizumi or anti-Koizumi, etc.), an approach that risks making enemies of the LDP members on the short end of a cabinet shuffle? Do the Japanese people actually see the current cabinet as a "Koizumi-Abe line" cabinet and reject it as a result? Or do they reject it because it has failed to deliver significant results?

A new cabinet may enjoy a small bump, but any bump is guaranteed to be short lived. The new cabinet will face the same obstacles faced by the current cabinet (hostile public, recalcitrant DPJ, divided LDP), with the possibility that opting for a policy-oriented cabinet over a "unity" cabinet will actually exacerbate the LDP's divisions. Ironically, a more ideologically cohesive cabinet could be less effective than a heterogenous cabinet that is more capable of exploiting opportunities and co-opting potential rivals. Advocates of a reshuffled cabinet must at least consider the possibility that the new cabinet could be worse than the current, adequately mediocre Fukuda cabinet.

Does Mr. Fukuda actually think that the source of his troubles are his cabinet? Why fix something that isn't broken?

Waiting for Obama

A new LDP club has formed that some have described as "capable of inciting the overthrow of the government." The group, known as the "Association for the implementation of a new presidential election [for the LDP]," was instigated by Yamamoto Ichita and is a response to the freefall in the LDP's public approval. They will compile three proposals to present in October: (1) a plan for greater transparency in the LDP; (2) a method of cultivating new leaders; and (3) a primary system for LDP presidential elections, to ensure more "dramatic" elections. (A glance at their prospectus — read below — shows not surprisingly that this is in part a response to the US Democratic Party primaries and the interest they attracted worldwide. They must realize, of course, that the candidates make the primaries interesting and not vice versa.)

The group, according to Mr. Yamamoto, has thirty-five members. Mr. Yamamoto also provides the group's prospectus, which is instructive in considering where the prime minister and the LDP stand at the end of the extraordinary Diet session:

The Liberal Democratic Party is on the verge of its greatest crisis since the formation of the party. Not only has an image been established of a "party clinging to established rights and interests," but opposition to the new eldercare system, anger at the vanishing pensions problem, and the recurrence of wasted tax revenue scandals have caused the public's "loss of confidence in the LDP" to raise to levels never seen before. In particular, in last year's House of Councillors election the governing parties lost their majority because "let's give the DPJ a chance" syndrome [I love this phrase] was not just in the cities, but spread to rural areas. Unless we find "ways to bring the party back from the dead," there is a strong possibility that in the next general election we will fall into opposition.

The prospectus then goes on to offer proposals for making "dramatic LDP presidential elections," starting with a proposal to lift the requirement that candidates must have twenty endorsements (which, they argue correctly, makes for faction-centered elections). The prospectus explicitly points to the example of South Korea's 2002 presidential election and the "Obama boom" in the 2008 Democratic primaries as ways in which parties revived their public fortunes through dramatic campaigns. The rest of the prospectus contemplates way to run a primary campaign process that will maximize public interest and revive the LDP.

Call it the Obama plan. The whole group seems organized for the purpose of finding the LDP's Barack Obama (or the LDP's Kimura Takuya in the TV drama "Change" — the prospectus cites both examples), a young, charismatic star who will somehow transform the party. (Speaking of Kimu Taku, in the July issue of Voice, Tahara Soichiro and Takenaka Heizo discuss a dream cabinet for executing reform. Their prime minister? Kimu Taku. Funny, but sad, so very sad.)

If Japan has a Barack Obama, chances are he's not already in the LDP, serving time on PARC and Diet committees. Chances are he's stayed away from politics altogether. And even if the LDP has a young, charismatic reformist waiting to take the reigns, it is unlikely that he (or she) could fix the party. The faction chiefs and zoku giin would swallow the new leader alive, either through constant warnings about the danger of taking one risk or another, or through outright opposition with the help of the bureaucracy. A pretty face and a silver tongue will not save Japan, and will not save the LDP.

Nevertheless, however unlikely the idea that reform of the system for electing LDP presidents will rescue the party, this could be the beginning of a move to push out Prime Minister Fukuda. If enough LDP members go home for the summer and hear from their constituents about the need to replace Mr. Fukuda before the next election, they might be drawn to Mr. Yamamoto's scheme — or if not his specific scheme, then the underlying idea that the party can rejuvenate itself through a leadership election.